Great-tailed Grackle

A big, brash blackbird, the male Great-tailed Grackle shimmers in iridescent black and purple, and trails a tail that will make you look twice. The rich brown females are about half the male’s size. Flocks of these long-legged, social birds strut and hop on suburban lawns, golf courses, fields, and marshes in Texas, the Southwest, and southern Great Plains. In the evening, raucous flocks pack neighborhood trees, filling the sky with their amazing (some might say ear-splitting) voices.

Typical Voice

Size & Shape

Male Great-tailed Grackles are long-legged, slender blackbirds with a flat-headed profile and stout, straight bills. The male’s tapered tail is nearly as long as its body and folds into a distinctive V or keel shape. Females are about half the size of males with long, slender tails.

Color Pattern

Male Great-tailed Grackles are iridescent black with piercing yellow eyes, and black bills and legs. Females are dark brown above, paler below, with a buff-colored throat and stripe above the eye. Juveniles have the female’s dark brown plumage, with streaked underparts and a dark eye.

Behavior

You’ll often see Great-tailed Grackles with other blackbirds pecking for food on lawns, fields, and at marsh edges, vying for trash in urban settings, or crowding in trees and on telephone lines in noisy roosts.

Habitat

Look for Great-tailed Grackles in rural and developed areas of the Midwest and West, foraging in agricultural fields and feedlots, and in suburbs including golf courses, cemeteries, parks, and neighborhood lawns. Large trees and vegetation edging marshes, lakes, and lagoons provide roosting and breeding sites.

Adult male

Similar Species

Boat-tailed Grackles overlap with Great-tailed Grackles only in coastal Texas and Louisiana. They live mainly in coastal saltmarshes, rarely moving inland (except in Florida where they are widespread across the peninsula). Boat-tailed Grackles have a much more rounded head, whereas Great-tailed Grackles have a sloping, flat crown. Females are best told apart by eye color: Great-tailed has yellow eyes; Boat-tailed has dark eyes. But beware of juvenile Great-tailed Grackles; their eyes change from amber to yellowish over the course of the first fall and winter. Common Grackles are substantially smaller, with shorter, flatter tails than Great-tailed Grackles, and the females look the same as the males. You may find Bronzed Cowbirds and Brewer’s Blackbirds mixed in with flocks of Great-tailed Grackles, but these are much smaller blackbirds with more compact proportions and shorter tails.

Backyard Tips

Great-tailed Grackles will take seed spread beneath feeders, often chasing off smaller birds. Cracked corn and milo are particular favorites. Find out more about what this bird likes to eat and what feeder is best by using the Project FeederWatch Common Feeder Birds bird list.

Find This Bird

Great-tailed Grackles can be found in open habitats with water nearby throughout the Midwest and West including farmland and city parks. Look for them in mixed flocks foraging on pastures and lawns—their long legs and massive tails distinguish them from other blackbirds and Common Grackles.